The “Red London” group A factual briefing for the labour movement Workers’ Liberty www.workersliberty.org February 2019 Red London in their own words RInedt Lroonddonu isc at Fiaocen book page which deploys unevidenced smears rather than political argument against people they politically oppose. Its administrators are anonymous. Red London also builds support for contemporary Stalinist state formations (e.g. North Korea, China) and praises “High Stalinism” (the USSR in the 1930s and 40s). The page appears to be strongly aligned to the Communist Party of Britain and its paper the Morning Star (many posts share and defend Morning Star articles). They are also Labour supporters and members. Red London’s favoured “hate targets” are Trotskyists, anarchists and “Radical Liberals”. “RadLibs” are people who are tagged with caricatured identity politics and support for “political correctness”. This hostile positioning involves no useful criticism; rather it is a way to promote an anti-liberal (small “l”) and “masculine” politics. Akin to trolling, their attacks come out as piss-taking banter and/or “working-class” identity politics including a more disturbing “hard man” imagery, and gratuitous viciousness. We are politically concerned by the growing audience for the idea that murderous totalitarian Stalinist regimes, both historically and in the contemporary world, are somehow authentically socialist. However, as unpleasant as that is, most of that kind of material can be politically critiqued. In contrast, since 2016 Red London have made a specific attack on Workers’ Liberty which is straightforward defamation, accusing us of vile and criminal activity. Through the medium of meme-making and “jokes” and often by direct accusation, Workers’ Liberty has been accused of condoning or even actively promoting paedophilia or child abuse. This accusation is ludicrous and without foundation (see bit.ly/2SueNHk). Whoever is responsible for this is engaging in reckless behaviour. Yet the accusation has been shared, promoted and cynically used in one form or another by others and the “story” has spread. Why do these ridiculous stories work? Because they speak to a sectarian mindset on the broader left that allows Trotskyists, or the AWL, or others, to be lied about without consideration for the consequences. The AWL has taken action to defend itself by reporting these defamations to Facebook, the police and the Labour Party, and now by publishing this briefing. If would be negligent not to take action to protect ourselves, and especially because many of us are parents, teachers, social workers, or youth workers, or have experienced sexual abuse in our lives. Our complaints have been obstructed by the fact that Red London’s output has been anonymously produced and that anonymity has been protected by its friendship network. However such cliques were bound to splinter. This has happened over a recent (justifiable) accusation of transphobia against Red London. Some members of the clique fell out with others, and were accused of trashing a flat in South London at a party on 8 November 2018. In the fall out, certain people were identified by their former friends as being linked to Red London. This briefing brings together images and other evidence to show how this group and the politics it promotes operate. We also publish what information we have about the identities of the people directly involved; this leans on the information from the recent fall out. There is some evidence here of people who are, or have allowed themselves to be, associated with or influenced by Red London’s culture (for example the practice of using a “vigilance salute”). We also publish this because we believe that people who make unsubstantiated defamations such as the one that has been made against the AWL are a poison in the labour movement. If they are allowed to get away with it they will take their method of reckless lying further; it will spread, and it will become increasingly hard to tackle. We urge everyone who has been associated with Red London in the past, even by simply liking or sharing their posts, and even if they agree with their general political views, to actively disassociate themselves from the group. RBeda Lconkdgonr iso nuot na md embership group and as we have said, its Facebook page is anonymous. As far as we know, it is a clique which caters to or helps to cohere a network of more-or-less like-minded people, some of whom will not support the extreme Stalinism of the core clique. This video gives some idea of the “attitude” — http://bit.ly/2RBvPlF. Some people around Red London will be members of the Communist Party of Britain, or regular readers of the Morning Star . But Red London’s Stalinism is cruder than that of the Morning Star . This is not proof, but people who regularly share Red London posts seem to be associated with the Young Communist League, or Communist Parties elsewhere in the world and/or the RMT union. Red London poses as a loyal champion of Jeremy Corbyn and is intolerant of any dissent from this. Instead it has 1 helped to drive a “bunker mentality” in some sections of the Labour left — “if you are not with Corbyn 100% on everything, you are against him”. Red London often hints towards a “Blue Labour” perspective. This argues Labour should focus on the white working class, and specifically alleged working-class opinions which are defined as anti-immigration and in favour of “cracking down” on crime. Red London are passionately in favour of Brexit (and contemptuous of “Remainiacs”). They are broadly on the side of Putin in international disputes. They are closely involved in Kurdish solidarity — on the side of the PKK. Red London do a lot of reposting from other Facebook meme pages (they may have the same administrators). For example, ‘Tenacious Tankie Memes’ and ‘Grand Marshall Corbyn's Patriotic Meme Collective’. Probably very few people are administrators or content producers for the Red London page. Many more people are or were friends and associates of Red London in “real life”. After the November 2018 fall out the following people were identified as Red London associates: Robert Daw (sometimes Rob O’Hara on Facebook), Dominic Cerasoli (Lewisham Momentum Political Education Officer,) and Alex Norton (Sandy Hale), a writer for the Morning Star. Daw and Hale are members of the RMT. A widely-shared Facebook post gives some of the details: bit.ly/2ScmCNC. We should point out that the report of the “trashing” of the party by Red London was denied. The public fall-out occurred on 11 November 2018. Red London have popularised a uniform — a red balaclava — among the group of mainly young Stalinists which forms their gang. The red balaclava “flips” the anarchist “black bloc” uniform and is symbolically linked to fighting the far right. The aesthetic also fits with their aim to “make confrontational interventions into socialist struggles”. Red London’s anti-fascist promotions, as for the broad left, have recently focused on opposing Tommy Robinson and the DFLA. But Red London’s favoured position echoes the vigilantism of the far right — “Paedo gangs and racists off our streets” is one of the banners these young Stalinists carry (see image on page 9) . If this is an attempt to “talk” to working-class people and football fans who follow Robinson, it is both inept and dangerous. Much the same could be said for the use of the England flag in Red London’s iconography. The way to fight the nationalist poison which fuels the DFLA is to glorify a “Communist” version of nationalism? Surely not! The Stalinist milieu, with Red London at the extreme end, has infected a layer of prominent, younger Momentum activists. Red London helped to popularise with that layer a campaign of so-called “vigilance” against “wreckers”, “cranks”, and “Trotskyites.” Some of those young Momentum activists may also be associated with the Young Communist League. Others will not be but have gone in for Stalinist iconography (e.g. Soviet art) on their social media as kitsch symbols of a shared political identity. For two years, continuing today on the Red London site, Momentum and left-wing Corbyn supporting Labour Party members have photographed themselves on social media holding up an index finger (a symbol also popularised by Islamists, meaning “one god”). Many would have viewed the symbol as an expression of loyalty to Momentum, for the Corbyn leadership and against the right-wing witch-hunt against Corbyn. For the more politically conscious Stalinists it has been accompanied by the phrases “Vigilance” and “Clear them out” or “Clear out Hitler’s Agents”, a phrase used by Stalinists against Trotskyists during World War Two. Bit-by-bit, especially as Momentum closed down its internal democracy, the symbol became associated with a growing witch-hunt against Trotskyism, including the AWL. Against the AWL In October 2016 Red London created a false Facebook identity in the name of Mark Osborn, someone who has long been associated with the AWL, then published a fake story linked to this false identity. The story says that in 2003 the AWL boycotted an anti-war demo to organise a “paedophile rally”. Further, that Mark Osborn (originally named in the story but later identified only as “a Lewisham teacher”) was an activist in the Paedophile Information Exchange (see image 1a and 1b, page 5) . This story is completely fabricated and ludicrous: no such “rally” happened, we boycotted no anti-war demo. Mark Osborn had no connection at all to PIE. Red London used a reference to a 2003 two-part article by Gerry Byrne (in fact about how to protect children from abuse) to fabricate the story.